Afghan President Hamid Karzai saw his power enhanced by a new constitution, but ethnic divisions exposed in the debate over the charter will cast a shadow over presidential elections in June and gnaw at his leadership.
Western diplomats and analysts broadly welcomed the new blueprint for post-Taliban Afghanistan, which outlines a presidential system of government, with two houses of parliament and equal rights for women.
It also recognises minority languages, a key concession to delegates who tried to dilute the president's powers in a row that pitted them against the largest Pashtun ethnic group to which Karzai belongs.
"The real danger is that the process of adopting this has sharpened the existing ethnic divisions in Afghanistan," said Vikram Parekh, an Afghan analyst with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.
"Karzai got this thing through by cajoling Pashtuns, regardless of ideology, into supporting him.
"The price of that has been to curtail the extent to which he is perceived as a national figure."
The anti-Karzai lobby at the constitutional Loya Jirga, or Grand Assembly, was led by former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, Uzbek strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum and Islamic conservative Abdul Sayyaf.
Along with their allies from the former anti-Soviet mujahideen, or holy warriors, they have yet to co-operate fully in a disarmament process seen as vital to replacing the rule of the gun with the rule of law.
Sayyaf in particular also wants a stricter interpretation of Islam than would Karzai and his backers in Washington.
Delegates from both sides of the divide at the Loya Jirga expressed anger at the way the charter was decided by a small group of power brokers behind the scenes, helped by frantic last-minute US and UN mediation.
Pashtuns, traditional rulers of Afghanistan, have felt alienated since the Taleban's defeat in 2001, with minority Tajiks from the north dominating many ministries in Kabul.
The constitutional debate, which ended on Sunday, went some way to redressing the balance in their favour, but that in turn has upset Tajiks, Uzbeks and other smaller clans.
Francesc Vendrell, the EU's envoy to Afghanistan, agreed that ethnic rifts were underlined at the debate, but said the achievement of a new charter that clears the way for presidential elections later this year must not be squandered.
Vendrell has been urging NATO-led peacekeepers in Kabul, called the International Security Assistance Force, to expand into volatile areas by deploying military-civilian teams in a bid to restore suspended assistance work and control militancy.
"He (Karzai) needs Western support, but he needs renewed Western support, particularly in the security sphere," Vendrell told Reuters. "We need more and better-equipped forces for ISAF. We need to establish these provincial military teams."
With presidential, and possibly parliamentary elections in June, time is short. Less than 250,000, or one percent, of Afghans have registered to vote, only a fifth of them women. The UN is registering in just eight areas due to security concerns.
In the south and east, remnants of the ousted Taleban regime are blamed for a wave of violence in which hundreds of people have died. In the north, old commanders from anti-Soviet militia run their regions as personal fiefdoms, sometimes brutally.
"I know of more than one instance where commanders have private jails," Lakhdar Brahimi, outgoing UN special representative to Afghanistan, said on Sunday.
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